Gateway FPD2485W 24" Widescreen LCD

Reviews: Multimedia

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Anthony Fiti
Kurtis
Gateway
Apr. 9, 2007

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Introduction

Gateway has been quiet lately. We see commercials for Dell on TV all the time, yet Gateway has been shipping computers almost as long as Dell. Gateway was a well known brand back in the dot-com boom, and their distinctive cow-boxes and the Gateway 2000 moniker (which of course now sounds lame since its 2007, though it sure did sound cool back in the 90s).

Gateway is new to the high-end LCD business. While they've been selling LCDs with their computers for a while, only recently have they been selling the larger displays under their own name.

Gateway's FPD2485W 24" LCD monitor is on the review block today, so we'll see just how well it performs. We've seen 22" and 24" monitors from other manufacturers, and now it's the newbie's turn. Will it excel or just be another player in the LCD biz? Will the monitor be a worthy way to spend your tax refund from Uncle Sam? Read on to find out.

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Page 1 of 8

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Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: First Looks & Tech Specs
Page 3: Taking a Closer Look
Page 4: Setup
Page 5: Testing - Display
Page 6: Testing - Features
Page 7: Max's Thoughts
Page 8: Conclusion

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8 User Comments

1 - Posted by Ryley on April 30, 2007 - 10:45 pm

I bought the Gateway FPD2485W 24" Widescreen LCD about 2 months ago. I had planned on getting the 24'' Dell, but found this on sale at a near by electronics chain for $649. Being impatient, I got the Gateway. I'm mainly a gamer and I've had no issues or problems with it. Based on my experience I'd recommend it.

2 - Posted by Kurtis on May 1, 2007 - 12:54 am

Welcome to our forums, Ryley, and thank you for sharing your experience with the Gateway 24" LCD. :)

3 - Posted by treesfall on May 13, 2007 - 10:27 am

I bought this monitor and returned it once so far for the backlight issue...it had a light grey spot about the size of a lemon in the upper right corner...I have a photo I could upload if interested..that monitor was a febuary 07 build. I exchanged it at circuit city for a march build. The backlight is better, I can live with what I see but it is not perfect. I am using the monitor in analog and I want to use DVI to see if it helps the picture, but I am having a problem with that. With DVI conected, everything looks great through the windows 2000 startup screen. After the startup screen, when the desktop should be visible, the screen goes blank and says "no input". I don't know if it is monitor related or card related. I'm having a love-hate relationship with this thing so far. Oh, another thing, text is not sharp all across the screen, there are sharp patches and fuzzy patches scattered around. I was hoping DVI would fix that but I can't get DVI to work. Color banding is not very noticible in the photoshop gradient test as described in this article, but I do notice it when watching a movie if a glowing light or similar is part of the picture. That's my thoughts for now, I have been using this march monitor for a week now.

4 - Posted by Max Slowik on May 13, 2007 - 11:20 am

No shit? Me too, the upper right corner is the worst. I mean, it's not as bad as it could be, I don't want to make it seem like it's catastrophic, and I've definitely seen LCD displays with some more prominent pinching/warping of the TFT around the edges, but it's at least noticeable when you're looking at it.

I've been using light or gray backgrounds to mitigate it.

I want to RMA this monitor so badly, but I need it right now because I'm reviewing video cards :)

Kurtis, make someone send me a display so I can RMA this one.

(I still love the PiP stuff. It's priceless.)

5 - Posted by treesfall on May 14, 2007 - 8:18 am

The upper right corner of mine was terrible. I could see that spot all the time, even on a fairly busy backround picture. It made watching a movie really annoying. the problem seemed heat related, screen looked fine when cold, half hour later that upper right corner was really warm in the back compared to the rest of it. My fuzzy text issue was fixed with an auto adjust, oops, shoulda done that before complaining. My DVI issue is my gfx card I am pretty sure. I threw on V for Vendetta last night to review the color banding again, it really looks bad displaying smoke and glowing lights, I mean really bad. Still not sure if this thing is a keeper, but the extra desktop space is awesome and other than movie watching (which is 75% of the reason I bought this thing) I do like it.

6 - Posted by sirebral on May 23, 2007 - 10:21 pm

I bought this monitor in December. I am going to have to take it back because the USB ports have totally failed. They won't even drive a 16 mb thumb drive. In addition, I am having the same issue with a bright spot in the upper left corner. Also, the PIP function is messed up. Every time I use it and the monitor goes into sleep mode, it forgets which input it is on and I have to unplug it to get it to recognize that it is still attached to my running computer.

7 - Posted by Nate on August 3, 2007 - 8:00 am

Ive had this monitor for about 3 months,I bought it at Best Buy for 550 dollars,and I use my pc mostly for gaming.I installed the Nvidia geforce 8500 GT graphics card and the graphics are great.I havent had one single problem with this monitor yet.I would recomend it to anyone who is looking for a widescreen monitor.Not only does it perform well,it has some nice features too.

8 - Posted by wlb on August 9, 2007 - 9:20 am

guys see my review-the comments across the net have been rife with problems, but honestly i haven't had any with this monitor-perhaps it's a quality control problem with Gateway because their stock has been tanking and they are dumping money into the don't pass line

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